Eternize Us
by Brytte Mystere
Summary: Each tomb gives them more pieces of a story they don't remember. Little do they know that they're losing parts of themselves on the way. (It's not like it matters any way) {PEDMUND} Set after the LWW movie. Kinda PC AU.


_**Eternize Us**_

The statues have their final wounds.

It is as of yet unknown who sculpted them, or why they decided to represent the Four in such a way–but each on their own part of the labyrinth Cair Paravel seems to have turned into, the four tombs deep within the earth in a way that shouldn't be possible so close to the sea, had Aslan not willed it to be so–, larger than any human could have ever been, all tall and standing proud even as the undimmed colour of their blood revealed whatever ended up causing their end. Seeing them all was astounding, awe-inspiring, certainly more than enough to leave the unexpected visitors breathless.

The first chamber, and so the first tomb they see, belongs to a man with dark hair down to his shoulders, standing gracefully right in front of what they all suppose has to be his own sarcophagus, somehow remaining with half of him in the light that–purposefully, they'll realise soon, while trying to puzzle his identity in order to be allowed to keep going, for they know the only way to go is _forward_ –slips through the richly decorated ceiling, while the other half of him remains in shadows.

The man's expression is truly inscrutable, left hand in the light, holding a magnificent sword with its blade tainted in some kind of shining blue liquid, that even being as solid as every other piece of marble around them, still seems to remain fluid. The sword points upwards, and the shadows that hide the other half of his body–splitting him from head to toe in a way that implies something unnatural helps to keep it so–would easily mislead anyone who could bother to not look as attentively as _they_ have to into thinking that his other hand was passively lying by his side.

As the eldest sibling soon realises, though, the man's right hand is pointing downwards, yes, but isn't empty at all. The man is holding another sword, what seems upon closer inspection like a sheet of parchment wrinkled as the man holds the sword's pommel with it, as if he had been caught while reading it and hadn't been given the chance to let it go. Thus the parchment is somewhat wrapped around the sword's pommel, contents hidden both by the persistent shadows that cling to that side of the statue and the position the man is holding it in, as if was a mere wrapping for his sword's pommel. The blade, even in the shadows, seems to be dripping _blood_ , so realistically that for a whole minute the children think it _is_ , and fear that the statue will somehow come to life and end them right then and there.

An engraving at the statue's feet identifies him as _"the Just"_ , with a short epitaph under it, that proclaims him as _"beloved brother, king, consort and father"_. It's beyond strange, to see them all in such a procession, and the images engraved all through the ceiling don't exactly make his story clearer, although if something is certain is the man's _duality_ , for by every scene he's seen doing something heroic, there's a baffling one, in which he's often surrounded by all sorts of beasts, or back to back with a woman that the eldest girl tentatively supposes his wife. In every scene depicting the two they're back to back, as if leaning in the other for support, she guesses. And yet, there's a blonde man there too, someone the dark haired man of the statue– _the Just_ –seems to be even _closer_ to, a scene to his right even depicting them both in bed, entwined like lovers as two ornate crowns, one golden and one silver, lie by their side.

The eldest girl blushes when she sees it, rapidly covering her younger sister's eyes as if to keep her from seeing the scene–not that it works at all, seeing as the elder girl is trembling with some emotion she cannot name and so the youngest can easily see through the spaces between her fingers–, her elder brother half-heartedly going to do the same with his younger brother, yet failing, both due to the way the scene enraptures him and his brother's swift dodging.

The scene is strangely intimate, and the blond boy–the eldest–approaches it as if pulled by some sort of spell, his fingers barely reaching it when a sound is heard right behind them, a _gasp_ , and they all turn, startled, to see that something shines by the statue.

The _something_ is a golden key, which seems to have fallen from the too-realistic-looking wound in the man's left side, where a trail of what certainly looks like true blood mars the otherwise shining armour of the Just, something that could have well been taken from some Arthurian legend, all silver-looking armour with royal blue garments peeking underneath, seeming rich enough to fit a king, who as the silver crown on his head seems to imply, _the Just_ certainly is.

The younger brother–third-born in their group of four–is the first to reach it, quickly realising that the golden key can only fit a golden lock in the sarcophagus.

The four ponder for several minutes if they should open it, the elder siblings clearly not wanting to subject their younger sibling to the sight of a corpse that, by the dust covering everything at the very least, must have certainly been there for a very long time. The younger siblings mange to convince them otherwise, though, and so the sarcophagus is unlocked and all four give their all to move the heavy lid covering it.

What they find is rather... unexpected.

There's a corpse in there, for sure, but it doesn't _look_ like one. The man lying in the sarcophagus seems unchanged by time, skin fresh and hair shiny, as if he had merely decided to take a nap. Yet when the eldest sibling's trembling fingers touched him, looking for a pulse, there was none, and the skin was as cold as the marble surrounding it, its coldness hardly damped by the velvet covering it inside the sarcophagus.

The Just–for there was no doubt it _was_ him, the resemblance to the statue was far too great to ignore–seemed frozen in time, lying there, still decked in his shining armour, arms crossed by his hip with a sword in each hand, bloody side and all, crown perfectly decked over his head, as if he was ready to jump out at any moment.

' _Once and Future King...'_

The four children were British. They had heard the tales. As much as they had found themselves taken from their world and dropped in the seemingly endless maze that was the castle, _Cair Paravel_ , it didn't truly sink in that they were trapped in a world were normal rules didn't apply 'till they saw the man. And _**never**_ had they thought those words _menacing_ 'till that precise moment.

" _The ring!"_ says the younger brother, whose hair was, strangely, almost the very same tone of the man and his statue.

Before his siblings could stop him, the boy had taken the aforementioned ring from the man in the sarcophagus, the silver band fitting perfectly in his heart finger of his right hand, its dark blue gem shining somewhat ominously, all in all a weirdly _right_ contrast with his pale skin.

His siblings froze in place, the eldest merely dragging his brother behind him before, like his sisters, he stayed as still as possible, all eyes on the man lying in the sarcophagus, wondering if he would suddenly awake and kill them all for daring to steal from him.

Yet the man stayed still, his right hand lying now loosely over the pommel of the sword to his left, and the moment was broken again by the younger boy, who huffed annoyed as he more or less pulled his brother with him towards the statue, and then beyond, going right through its legs to reach a door that had been hidden by its shadow. The sisters could do naught but follow, trembling and skittish at every little noise, eyes always darting back towards the open sarcophagus.

"Come on, come on, _this way!"_

The younger brother waved his right hand in front of the door, and as the ring shone again, the seemingly seamless stone _moved_ , the door finally obvious to them all, as was the hall beyond it.

{ **x** }

They all remained silent, the man's peaceful face engraved in their minds, the closed hall–all stone, no window or opening on its length–eventually left them in another tomb, this one with the statue of a red-headed woman dominating the room.

All of them felt it, how the story they were slowly discovering _resonated_ within them all–a child, a wardrobe, a faun and a majestic Lion that was shadowed by the androgynous form of a dark-haired human-shaped being, mane just as the animal's all heavily portrayed in many of the scenes covered in _her_ ceiling–, confused feelings overwhelming them as more pieces of a story they still had no hope of making any sense of were unveiled to their eyes.

The woman was different than the man they had seen before in many ways, and yet somehow startlingly similar.

For starters, _her_ statue lied completely bathed in the light, a dagger clearly visible on her left hand, yet pointing downwards just as the man's right sword had been, a cordial of some sort held upwards in her right hand, the light glinting on every one of its facets, 'till it gave the impression of being mostly full of some kind of red-gold liquid that perfectly went with the dark red garments peeking underneath her light golden armour.

A thin, golden crown sat upon her flowing auburn locks, and she was so decked in red and gold that it took them some time to realise that the red in her throat was from a wound, marring her otherwise smooth golden peach skin.

Her epitaph read _"the Valiant"_ , and underneath engraved was _"beloved sister, queen and warrior"_.

Many scenes depicted her in battle, both healing and ending others, when not with the faun of the red scarf or the Lion. Yet all of her seemed to be... _holy_ , in a way. Her statue certainly gave off a feeling of absolute _fierceness_ that was both breath-taking and inspiring. A call to action they could not keep themselves from echoing, in a way.

The youngest was the one moved this time around, attracted inexorably towards the biggest depiction of the Lion and its strange humanoid shadow, and her fingers had merely reached it when a faint _laugh_ was heard, fairly spooking them all as it echoed all through the room.

They turned again, towards the statue and the sarcophagus at its feet, seeing something they already felt was a key shining right on its centre, as if fallen directly from the wounded neck of the woman in the statue.

 _It was even worse than the man._ For while the man's injury could be more or less easily overlooked, the woman's neck had been obviously pierced with something that had left quite a lot of damage in its way, and the blood seemed to ooze still from it, in a way that kept all of them from even trying to find a pulse.

They all stood there, just staring at the woman of red and gold, eyes trying to look anywhere _but_ at her wound, and so ending up fixed in the cordial and the dagger that, just as with the man, where each held in their respective hand, her arms crossing at her hips.

The youngest took the cordial, just as her older brother had taken the ring, but made no motion to touch the dagger. For as her brother before her, she somehow felt that the weapons were not meant to be taken. That the dagger seemed to be dripping blood from its blade certainly made her even less willing to get it.

And they all followed her behind the statue, where another hidden door opened one she waved the taken treasure in front of it, her siblings following her–her elder brother following earnestly, while the eldest siblings walked more sedately, dread building up between their shoulders as, again, they all walked through a closed-off dark hallway.

{ **x** }

The new room had a woman's statue as well, this one decked in a gorgeous green dress, her light silver armour somehow fitting seamlessly with it, as if it was nothing but another part of her garments, a bow with four arrows held expertly in her left hand, somehow giving off the impression that the woman could be ready to fire in a fraction of a second.

She resembled the first statue more than the last, for she stood with the same baffling graceful poise as the Just, dark hair mere tones lighter than his had been, if reaching far below her shoulders to her mid-back, held beautifully by an unseen hair brooch, a beautiful thin silver crown sitting perfectly on her dark locks, her skin as pale as the man's had been. As if the sun had never touched them. As if they had been carved from the purest white marble. Both held half in light and half in shadows, if hers weren't as dark as his had been.

Her beauty was mesmerizing, and as she held on her right hand what seemed to be an ornate horn, none of the children doubted that she could have called to war all sorts of beings, all falling over themselves to fight under her banner.

The scenes in her ceiling depicted many balls, and what looked like diplomatic meetings, intermingled with scenes of her and a partner, which in ones was male and in others female, but clearly not the same. It could have seemed depraved, maybe, just as the intimate scene in the first tomb, but all of them seemed filled with love, all inevitably decorated with a window that showed passing seasons, which made them all wonder if maybe she had had so many lovers because they had the awful tendency to somehow leave her.

Such a theory was confirmed when, while closely examining the scenes in the walls, in the part somewhat hidden in shadows, a scene of the woman crying, all her lovers lying around her, grey and lifeless, took their breaths away, even as it made the elder girl's heart twist painfully within her chest.

When she touched the scene–and she _touched it_ , ignoring the pained gasp that echoed through the room–, the elder girl knew what had happened with them, as if the information had flashed through her brain, and wondered if maybe the key she knew was waiting by the statue, the key that had invariably dropped each time one of them had approached the clearly most _private_ scene in each tomb, had been an attempt of whatever had been guiding them all through the castle to spare them the truth such scenes could unveil. For she certainly wished she could forget what the image had _told her_ , somehow.

' _This is_ _ **me**_ _. This is_ _ **us**_ _. And I lost them, I lost them all, for their lives were brief... unlike mine.'_

She had known something was _wrong_ since the moment they all woke up, sitting in thrones in a deserted castle, still wearing their pyjamas, having gone to sleep not long ago for their very first night at the Professor's house. A sense of uncanny _familiarity_ had been resonating within them all, she knew, she had known, just as she knew now why _her_ statue had no wounds. After all, the perfect poison leaves no traces.

And she didn't _want_ to keep going. She didn't _want_ to reach what she knew, would be _Peter's_ tomb. Yet she also knew she had no choice. They had recklessly wandered through the castle, carelessly claimed two _gifts_ already. As much as both she and Peter could still retreat, stop the change she knew would start the second she claimed her _gift_...

Edmund and Lucy were changing already. And come hell or high water, she _would not_ be separated from them again. If it meant sacrificing her humanity, so would it be. Susan Pevensie had her family back, _she was back in her young body again_ , and the memories that had remained mere shadows of a dream since their return from their first time in Narnia were already returning with full force.

As much as she hated knowing that they were back–that Aslan, _Aslan_ had toyed with them so cruelly, that the Lion had lied to them so much, so thoroughly–, she also knew that she _**would not**_ leave her siblings to the whimsy deity again.

' _How could I have ever believed that Lion was truthful? How could I ever believe that Lion the God I was raised to believe in? Oh, They've played us thoroughly...'_

But then, they had been mere children, far too easily manipulated, far too easily deceived into seeing what they wanted to see. By the time they had realised who Aslan truly was–certainly not any deity she had ever heard about, if frankly more alike to the ones depicted in Greek myths than those in the Christian ones–, by the time they had thought to _escape_ , they had been in too deep. So she reflected as she finally turned to take the key from where it lied, as if it had fallen from her parted lips, as her siblings helped her slide open the lid f her sarcophagus. The Lion's punishment had been swift and unexpected, and on hindsight, she wondered how she hadn't realised how strange it had been, to be back to those days before their mother had sent them all off to the Professor, how Peter and Edmund had remained closed, _so close_ , and yet somehow unable to give the final step and keep on the relationship they had had in Narnia, where Edmund, as touched by the Deep Magics as he had been–and now, hadn't that been _convenient?_ Had Aslan truly planned it all?–, could easily let himself become a _she_ when needed, eventually shifting so often and so seamlessly than them all had taken to refer to him as _Ed_ for easier reference.

' _We stopped being human, we took the whole world in the Lion's name, and so we'll do again...'_

There would be no way back, this time. She knew this. She knew it, as she took her horn from her still, time-frozen corpse, ignoring her bow, her arrows, and the quiver that lied hanging by her hip.

Aslan wouldn't let them go again, but it was needless, for them all–well, her, who had been the one wanting to escape the Lion's trap in the first place–had learned their lesson. The Lion had, after all, off-handily warned them at their coronation.

" _Once a King or Queen of Narnia,_ _ **always**_ _a King or Queen. May your wisdom grace us_ _ **'till the stars rain from the heavens**_ _."_

No way back. It didn't matter anymore. She had her siblings back. She would never have to lose them, one by one. This time, there would be no _sleeping_ to go back "home". She had learned her lesson. _Narnia_ was to be her home, as much as it had been her prison.

Her epitaph, which she observed in passing behind her statue, towards the door that would take her to Peter's tomb, read _"the Gentle"_ , underneath engraved _"beloved sister, queen and diplomat"_.

She couldn't help but scoff, even as she waved her gift in front of the door, almost _feeling_ the tingle of magic go through her as she lead her siblings through another stoned hallway.

 _Diplomat_ , had called her whatever moron ended up engraving her tomb. For once she was grateful for having been _there_ to avoid mistakes in her siblings' tombs. But then, she couldn't really blame the author. Her dealings with the dark side of _ruling_ , which she had shared with Edmund–if taking the more... _light_ duties, those that could be made in balls and meetings under the sunlight, than her brother, nothing but a concession to his more _warrior_ side. After all, she had always been the calmer of the two–through most of their reign (before he had died, being swiftly followed by first Peter and soon after Lucy) had been kept carefully under wraps, even to their siblings.

" _What they don't know can't hurt them,"_ had said Edmund once.

Reaching the final tomb, she could not help but agree... Even as she knew that everything would soon be revealed, for as surely as _she_ was regaining her memories, Ed's troubled expression gave him away just as surely as his slowly shifting figure, the memories destabilizing him, his body not sure what exactly it was supposed to be, before settling in the more androgynous shape his self from the first tomb had had.

Lucy, in turn, looked happy, as if the return of her memories or Aslan's blatant manipulation of them all had had no impact on her... but then, Lucy's connection to Aslan had always been rather particular, in a very different way Ed's had been.

As she faintly heard a growl echo through the room–not bothering to look around too deeply, knowing as she did that the room was mostly decorated with depictions of Peter's many battles, and many more scenes of his unwavering love towards Ed, manifested in all kinds of ways. After all, _she_ had supervised its decoration, letting herself go more freely in depicting her siblings' especial brand of love–a love that had unfortunately ended up making them all have to go to war against Archenland, whom they had up to that point considered _allies_ , because apparently a relationship backed by Aslan Themselves, or the fact that said relationship didn't affect them in the slightest, wasn't enough to calm their sensibilities–in a way she hadn't really dared to do in Ed's own tomb.

But then, Peter's absolute devotion to Ed was so intrinsic to him that trying to tame it or diminish its presence in any way would have been much more impossible than in Ed's case. After all, her elder brother had always been far less discreet, far less _measured_ when it came to showing his affections than her younger one. So she had deked him in golden clothes and black armour, his golden, ornate crown sitting perfectly on his golden locks, _Rhindon_ held proudly towards the sky even as his right flank bled there where the fatal wound had been afflicted, shield hanging loosely from his left hand, light and shadows falling upon him in strange ways, as if reflecting the constant turmoil the Magnificent had been–and _would be_ –, never wavering even as he took the mantle of the Golden Fire.

She turned, just in time to see her brothers run towards each other, meeting half-way in a hungry kiss, Peter holding _Rhindon_ even as he pulled Ed more tightly against his body, a glance to her side revealing that Lucy was watching them as well, lips curled in a smile that would have made the mythic _Cheshire Cat_ proud.

They didn't hold her attention for long, though, and Susan remained calmly in place even as her sister approached her, each step morphing her into a younger version of the woman she had been, the sounds of their brother's clothes falling to the floor inciting the elder girl to keep her attention on her sister even as she wondered if it was happening too with them. _She_ , at least, knew it was happening with her as well. Somewhat distracted, Susan noted that her sister had regained the full force of her lioness walk. It did not scare her. Well she knew that lioness Lucy could be, she would never hurt her siblings, Susan included.

Indeed, the youngest Pevensie merely stopped a breath away from her elder sister, blue eyes twinkling and Cheshire-like smile unwavering.

"We're back, Su!"

 _'Shall we go play?'_ Remained untold, but it wasn't needed for the Gentle Queen to understand the Valiant Queen's wishes. After all, their siblings would certainly take their time reacquainting themselves with each other, and she wasn't in the mood to stay and watch them.

Aslan had surely readied new things for them to do. The tombs seemed to have been left unvisited for a long time, after all. Without their constant presence, their realm would have surely fallen into chaos. And with Peter and Ed otherwise occupied, it was the perfect opportunity to practise her abilities, since they wouldn't be there taking all their targets.

She could feel her bow materialise in her left hand, her quiver a familiar weight by her hip, as was her horn, hanging from her back as once had her bow–when she could still be called somewhat inexperienced in _actual_ battle as an archer–, Lucy's dagger as well appearing by _her_ hip. The youngest Pevensie put her cordial back in its proper place, lying opposite to her dagger, and the two of them went on their way.

Before leaving, though, Susan looked back to her brothers, where they frantically communed by the now empty sarcophagus, both clearly a somewhat younger version of the _selves_ their statues had represented, Ed's twin swords lying nearby.

She smiled, following Lucy and already feeling lighter, happier, even as the soon-to-be battle neared.

 _Once and Future Monarchs, indeed..._

 **A/N:** I confess I have... no idea what this is supposed to be. I'm writing this at 3 am. So sorry for any typos.

This is... my attempt at a gift-fic, I guess? NickeltheRed, love, please forgive this mess. Also, it seems like "The Greatest" by Sia is main track when it comes to writing anything _Pedmund_ (or more generally, _Chronicles of Narnia_ ) related. I beg you accept this poor excuse of a winter holiday gift.

Now if you excuse me, I'll be weeping in the corner about the two end-term works I should have been doing. Curse my weakness, I have an exam in, like seven hours... _Urggg..._


End file.
